SK Chemicals to adopt holding company form

Home > Business > Industry

print dictionary print

SK Chemicals to adopt holding company form

SK Chemicals, the chemical and pharmaceutical arm of SK Group, will adopt a holding company structure, the biggest change to its structure since it was founded 48 years ago.

The company held a board of directors’ meeting on Wednesday that agreed on transforming the company’s corporate structure into a holding company system. The current SK Chemicals will be split into a holding company and an operating company. The holding company will be in charge of management of subsidiaries, which include SK Gas, SK Plasma and SK E&C and the management of the company’s business portfolio.

The holding company will take a 48 percent share of the current SK Chemical and the operating company will take the remaining 52 percent.

“The decision is meant to maximize the efficiency of management and increase the competence of subsidiaries,” said the company in a press release. “It is to increase shareholders’ value by dividing investment and operations of the company and strengthen transparency and responsible management.”

As a first step, SK Chemicals will sell its treasury stocks. SK Chemicals own 13.3 percent of its treasury stocks. It will retire 8 percent and sell the remaining 5.3 percent in the stock market.

The operating company will focus on high-end chemical materials such as co-polyester and bio-energy. SK Gas will expand its business into developing chemicals based on liquefied petroleum gas.

The company will officially be spun-off into a holding company and operating company on December 1. Re-listing of the company is expected to take place around December or January. It will undergo procedures for the public listing before a shareholders meeting slated for October 27.

“SK Chemicals has re-vamped its business portfolio centered on Green Chemicals and Life Science since 2000, but the value of the company was discounted as it was mixed with the performances of other subsidiaries,” said Koo Ja-yong, an analyst from Dongbu Securities. “But through the holding company structure, the value of the operating company will be truly reflective of [its own] performance.”


BY CHOI HYUNG-JO [choi.hyungjo@joongang.co.kr]
Log in to Twitter or Facebook account to connect
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
help-image Social comment?
s
lock icon

To write comments, please log in to one of the accounts.

Standards Board Policy (0/250자)